


Take back what you hid, my love

by Mynuet



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Ancient Rome, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Scott is a Bad Friend, Soul Bond, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5546282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mynuet/pseuds/Mynuet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A spell goes wrong and sends Derek bouncing through his past lives, searching for the key for how to get home and haunted by the same set of golden eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take back what you hid, my love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neffi3](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=neffi3).



"Dominus, you are run mad, and I must not allow you to damage yourself or any others in your fits."

"A nice way for a slave to speak. Shall I fetch you wine, as you are now the master who allows me to do as the gods will?"

That received a scoff as an answer, even as the servant poured more wine into a jeweled goblet. After a long moment, the master said, "Do you really think it such a terrible idea?"

"Magic is for priests and pantomimes," the slave said firmly. "To show yourself as capable of performing wondrous works would shortly make you as much a slave as I."

"After all, you've never been allowed to stop warming my bed since you showed such a talent for it." The master stretched leisurely, raking his eyes over the slave's body. "One can never hide again what has been revealed."

Another snort and some wine was poured into a plainer, earthenware cup. "My master is many things, but to be feared by such as me - that is not among his talents."

"You are a terrible slave and I should beat you," the master said. "Although I would need my magic to do so, as you are very quick and enduring, and I tire so easily."

"Dominus should leave his bed and swing his arms more often," the slave said. "If it is to beat me, then at least I will have served my master well."

With a small smile, the master said, "It would serve your master well if you would help me stand and fight for my master, the Caesar, in his fight to punish his father's murderers."

"Your master can fight without you, and win, or he will not be fit to bear the titles and honors of his father," the slave said firmly. "But if my master fights, he will die, and then his poor slave will have nothing left in life and will join him on the funeral pyre."

"I must," the master said. "I must, for even if I were not inclined to, the consul has soothsayers and priests who will inform him that I have capabilities that should help him. To not help him if I have the ability would be a betrayal."

Taking the master's frail hands in a tight grip, the slave said urgently, "Then hide it - bury it away until the fire of it is nothing but a spark! Use it, consume it, let it flood your bones with health and vigor - anything, my master, _anything_ except allowing it to tear you away from me."

Hands clinging together and voice shaking, he sounded nothing like a proud lord when he said, "You have given me orders, and I must not disobey. I could sooner defy the gods than you, against all natural order and reason, but I do not know that you comprehend what you ask for."

"I ask for you." The tone was implacable, even though the voice was hoarse. "I ask for the boy who was mine, the youth who saved his captor, the man whose children I raised, the master who would have freed me if I had allowed it. I ask for you to become mine, and mine alone."

"I have been," he said softly, his golden eyes shining just as they had when he was young and brimming with vitality. "Did you not know? I have ever been yours, and will be so forever hereinafter, for my power cannot be hidden entirely in my own self."

There was a hesitation, and for the first time Derek realized that he was not the slave, that he was someone separate watching from inside someone else's body. "What do you mean?"

With a soft smile, the elderly man patted the hands that had gripped his and said, "We will not always be happy, beloved, but we will always meet. I will always know you, and you will always carry within you the key to my doom or my salvation. My power..."

"Dominus!" Derek lunged forward to catch him as he swayed and fell forward. " _Stiles!_ "

***

_"What did you do?" Scott's contemptuous look was ignored as Stiles pulled at his own hair and paced. "I told you not to mess with this stuff -_ Deaton _told you not to mess with this stuff! What were you thinking?"_

_Stiles dragged his hands over his face, still pacing restlessly. "You don't understand, I needed to, I couldn't--"_

_"It's_ black magic _," Scott said. "Stiles, this is_ evil _."_

_That made Stiles stop in his tracks. "I'm not evil, Scott."_

_"Aren't you?" Scott spread his hands out to encompass all of the books and scrolls and printouts laying open around the room. "This isn't what you should be doing. You need to stop this, now."_

_"I can't." Stiles reached out to him in despair, only for Scott to take a step back. "If you'd let me explain, I--"_

_His eyes flashing red, Scott growled, "_ Now."

***

The kid sidled up to the side of the jailhouse, leaning against the wall casually so she could look around and see if anyone was watching. No one was; the gallows being fixed up was more interesting than a wall or the grocer's youngest wandering around. She'd have been watching the men fix up the gallows herself, if she hadn't caught a peek of the old gunslinger when she delivered some apples earlier and realized that they'd put him in the cell with a window out to the alley.

She'd read all the dime novels in the store before they'd sold, careful not to break the spines, and this gunslinger had been in a bunch of them. She knew it couldn't all be real - there was no one who could _always_ hit their target, and in one book he'd been fighting the Injuns and the next he'd been their brother and the next one after that he was back to killing them, which just plain didn't make sense. But still, he was a real person and at least _some_ of what got written down had to be true, right? 

The plan had a slight hitch in it, though, because now she was here and the window was there and she could look right in the bars, but then what? Was she just going to take a quick look and run off? Would she talk to him? What, exactly, had she thought would happen?

"Of course it's you." The voice was hoarse, kind of scratchy, and she wondered if maybe it was true that the gunslinger had breathed the fires of hell and it had burned his throat too much to ever speak well again. "You were there at the beginning, it makes sense you'd be there at the end."

The girl crept closer to the window, where she could see the gunslinger's wrinkled hands resting easily just outside the bars. "What's that mean?"

"You'll find out," the gunslinger said, sounding like he wanted to laugh. "After I die, look for a baby that was born right in that minute. They'll be special to you, I promise."

"How'd they catch you?" She blurted it out without realizing she was going to, then dug her toe in the dirt as she realized she really wanted to know. The silence stretched on and she felt her ears burning. "You're a legend and the sheriff, he's just an old drunk. You could've gotten away easy."

The gunslinger's hands twitched and retreated back behind the bars and the girl pressed closer, pressing her face against the bars so she could look inside. There wasn't a lot of light, but she could see that the pictures in the dime novels hadn't been _right_. He was tall and tan and had short hair, but they'd left out his freckles and the way his eyes seemed like the desert sand on a day so hot that you could see the air bending and twisting in the sunlight. 

"I could've," the gunslinger said at last. "But the sheriff has a kid and I guess I just got tired of hitting my targets."

Suddenly the thought of him dying was the most terrible thing in the world, more terrible than having to watch her Ma wither up and fall apart inside after the measles took her baby sister and left her big brother deaf and maybe simple, although people only said the second part when they thought her parents weren't around to hear. "I can get you a gun," she blurted out. "You could get away."

He smiled, and it damn near broke her heart. Tears welled in her eyes even before he said gently, "I won't. It's time, and I'm tired. You'll teach me again, as soon as you find me, just what I should be."

"I don't understand." She wrapped her hands around the bars, getting in as close as she could. "You're talking crazy."

He laid his hands softly over hers and a shock of cold went through her, the kind of cold of the air outside the blankets on a night the fire went out. "Sometimes I wish I could forget, or you could remember. Maybe someday we'll both do one or the other, in a life where we get to have years together."

The tears were streaming down her face now, and she didn't understand why. "None of this makes any sense." 

"Read about the Vorenii Magus." He reached through the bars to caress her cheek with his thumb, the touch soft as a butterfly's. "Or forget about me. Be happy. I never figured out the key, but I don't think it matters. Nothing matters, as long as you're happy."

"I never will be," she whispered, and stumbled back out of his reach when he tried to grasp her shoulders and stop her. "I will never be happy, and if we meet you'll know it's because of you, because you wouldn't _stay_ , because you're leaving me and I don't, I _can't_ understand why it matters!"

The door behind him rattled, but their eyes were locked together until the sheriff's men dragged him away to take him to his hanging. She ran away, so far away that she couldn't hear the crowd cheering, so far that she couldn't find her way back until late that night, long past when the household was in bed. Only her brother noticed she'd been missing, and in the next few days he did whatever he could to make her smile, even drawing her little pictures and writing down notes with his bad spelling and backwards letters. 

He was the one that found the book about magic, and when their parents died they traveled together to find out more and see the world together, using the language of gestures they'd made up to talk about everything they saw. Of all the people they met, the one who most fascinated her was a young boy with golden eyes that served her coffee somewhere in Turkey and could never be found again after.

***

_"This isn't you," Scott said firmly. "You're better than this. This is just for power - you don't need it!"_

_"There's something coming - can't you feel it?" Stiles ran a hand through his hair, trying to think of a way to explain things he didn't fully understand himself. "It's all wrong, and if I'm powerless, it's going to get worse, so much worse. Like, so bad. And, like, evil is relative, okay? There's no good guys or bad guys, it's us and them, and if I can't protect us then they win and we're done, there's nothing else. I have to do this."_

_Scott's mouth was a thin line as he listened. "That's not what Deaton said."_

_"Fuck Deaton." Stiles clenched his hands at his sides, finally still. "I don't trust him."_

_"I do," Scott said, each word a tombstone._

_The hurt was obvious as Stiles whispered, "And you don't trust me."_

_"It's not about that," Scott said, moving past the stacks of books to position himself between Stiles and the window._

_"Don't do this," Stiles begged, turning to keep Scott in front of him. "Please. Please, don't do this."_

***

Derek had ridden along for significant moments in what felt like a hundred lifetimes. Some were just fragments of time, a moment of eye contact, a fleeting touch in a crowd, and some were the product of years; once he'd even seen the eyes on a game show and then disappeared from that life by the commercial break. He didn't know if he was dreaming, and he didn't always know himself, although it seemed as if his memory of his own life was growing stronger. It was hard to tell, especially since he wasn't moving in any pattern he could make out; he'd be an old woman one moment, a young boy another, living in the shadow of the Imperial City as the emperor fought against his uncles, sinking in a shipwreck somewhere off the coast of Antigua, firing into the air as he felt a bullet rip into his side, living on a tiny fief and paying his lord in grain and service, pricking himself with a thorn as a sacrifice so that Cihuacoatl would carry him safely through giving birth to his first child.

Each time, no matter what color his skin or what language he spoke, no matter what age or sex or frailty, it always came back to golden eyes and the sense of needing to know something he couldn't even conceive of. Derek didn't realize at first that he was starting to influence his other selves, seeking out those eyes even when the self he was in didn't know why they were moving towards a stranger. He had tried to do more, to ask specific questions and find out why he was living these lives, what the key was, why he needed to know, who was Derek and why was he so many people and how could he become himself, if there was a single self for him to be.

This time he was old, movement painful and difficult, but when he caught sight of a flash of gold he tried to stand as he felt a surge of need and urgency like a memory of youth. The young woman that had just come into the room at the senior center rushed to help him, and he realized that the eyes weren't right, even though they were identical to the ones he'd followed through the ages. "Sorry," he heard himself saying. "I don't know what came over me."

"That's okay." She smiled at him warmly, taking a seat on the sofa next to the armchair where he spent most of his days. "It can be hard to break those gentlemanly habits, but I promise it's okay not to stand up when I come into the room. Although you still can't wear a hat indoors."

A sharp laugh burst out of him and he patted her hand. Derek was surprised to find that he didn't feel that shock of recognition that could be hot or cold or electric but was always there when he first touched Stiles. "You're a real firecracker, aren't you?"

"It's been said before." She smiled again and it was almost familiar.

"You here to poke and prod me while we pretend I'm not dying?" 

Shaking her head, she said, "It's your business if you die or not. Mostly I needed to sit down - my date heartlessly abandoned me for an emergency, although he tried not to say what. Police business or something boring like that."

"Very boring. You're probably too good for him." She laughed at that, her eyes bright, and it still wasn't right, but it was too close not to matter. "So, since you're not here to bleed me, make yourself useful and entertain me."

"That's the host's job," she said. "What's the most interesting thing you know?"

Leaning forward, he whispered, "That might be too much for you to handle."

Matching his confiding pose, she whispered back, "We're in a hospital. They could treat me for the shock."

"You'll never be the same," he said soberly, and her eyes danced with mirth even as she pulled a serious face and nodded. "All right, here it is - you sure you're ready?"

"I can take it," she said, her poker face not slipping even a little.

Clasping one of her hands in both of his, he said, "Magic is real."

She burst into peals of delighted laughter. "I knew that already!"

"No, you just think you do," he said. "But I, I know. I've seen things, and then I read things, and I _know_. I've even got some magic in me, but I can't unlock it. It just comes out sometimes."

Something in his tone and the desperate way he was holding on made her hesitate. "My father used to tell stories like that sometimes. He said a witch had cursed his mother's soul to never be happy."

"She didn't mean it," Derek said, remembering how he'd felt when the gunslinger was about to die and wouldn't do anything to stop it. "She didn't have enough power to know what she was saying."

"I never heard of a witch cursing an old Polish woman with depression because she didn't know better," the woman said, although she wasn't laughing anymore.

Shaking his head, Derek said, "It's not like that. She cursed herself; she didn't know she'd become your grandmother."

The woman frowned, then shook her head. "You realize that didn't make any sense."

"Magic usually doesn't," he said. "I've read about what people will do to get it, what they do once they have it, what forms it takes - there's all sorts of stories, and the true ones usually make the least sense."

"Tell me a story, then," she said. "A true one."

His lips quirked. "Demanding little thing, aren't you? Don't you know I'm old and sick?"

"Isn't that what old people want, someone to listen to them?" She smiled angelically, which somehow made her look all the more mischievous.

"You've got a point, and it stings," he said solemnly. "So, a long time ago, when men wore sheets and Octavian wasn't quite emperor yet, there lived a magician who didn't want to do magic, and a slave who loved him."

Arching an eyebrow, she said, "Can a slave really love a master?"

"If you'd read what the slave wrote, you wouldn't doubt it," he said. "Now are you going to listen or are you going to quibble?"

"Okay, we'll put a pin in that for now," she said. "Go on."

"The magician was weak - I never could find out whether he was sick or just old, birth records that old are pretty much nonexistent - but his magic was strong, and he could have helped the emperor, but the slave used unspecified wiles on him and he didn't. Octavian won anyway, and became Augustus, and you'd think it would all be a wash, but it wasn't."

She was on the edge of her seat now, eyes wide. "What happened?"

"Nothing much, as far as the empire was concerned. That's all in the history books, where magic has no place. Nothing much happened to the master and slave, either - they had some happy years together before the magician died, and he probably would've died then anyway. He was sick, and when you're old enough dying doesn't seem so bad."

Raising her hands in exasperation, she said, "You call this a story?"

"The story is in what happened next," he said. "The slave wrote it down, because after the master died, the slave was free but stayed to take care of his household, and then something happened that was important enough to write down and copy so many times that it's one of very few documents from that time period that survived even without Petrarch's efforts."

She gestured for him to continue and he smiled. "The magician returned to his beloved, in the form of a babe in arms brought to Rome with a merchant caravan from Gaul. The eyes were identical, and the slave was convinced that the magician's memory of their love would return if the key to unlocking his magic could be found."

"Maybe she was the key," the girl said. "Isn't love magic, too?"

"We don't know if the slave was a he or a she," said the old man. "The slave never deemed it important enough to write down, although there is a long, lyrical description of the master's golden eyes."

There was a knock at the door and a sheriff's deputy poked his head around the door. "Hey, there you are. I am so, so sorry - I promise, I can take you on a decent date if you'll just give me another chance."

"This date hasn't been too bad," she said, giving the old man a conspiratorial wink. "But I suppose now you can have a turn at taking me out, since my friend here is going to need a while to come up with a better story to tell me."

The deputy just looked confused, but the old man chuckled. "I'll leave you my books about magic and strange creatures and history in my will so you can have fun finding out, like I did. Then you can tell your kids the stories."

"I don't have any of those yet," she said as she stood. "It's only the first date - he might not be the marrying kind."

The familiarity of the eyes finally made sense as Derek recognized the young deputy as a much younger Stilinski, which made the girl-- "Claudia."

"Yes?" She turned back to him, even as Stilinski held the door open, but he just waved her off. What could he say that would help her, without jeopardizing the very existence of Stiles?

She left, chattering away to an obviously smitten Stilinski, and Derek tried to think of why he had been brought here, even as the old man dug out a writing pad and a pencil to write down that he wanted to leave all his books to a young lady named Claudia that had visited him and let him tell her stories. He sealed it up to send off to his oldest, since he hadn't paid good money to put a kid through law school only to pay someone else to handle his estate, and decided to get his walker and shuffle to the nurse's station instead of calling for someone to bring him a stamp. 

They were bringing in a patient as he got there, transferred in from the next county over because the facility he'd been staying in shut down, and Derek was surprised to see Deaton was there, pushing the old man's wheelchair and signing papers. He was saying something about the old man having been his mentor for years and stepping up because there was no family to provide care, and the noise of it washed over Derek without much impact as he drew closer, wishing his body was stronger and capable of rushing, but at last he took the other old man's hand and felt that same familiar shock even as his own body started to shut down.

***

_"I'm doing this for your own good," Scott said, holding his arms out as if to herd Stiles away from the window. "I can't let you do this."_

_"It's already done," Stiles said. "I cast the spell hours ago."_

_Scott's mouth dropped open. "You-- How could you?"_

_"Because it needed to be done," Stiles said. "Because I need to know how to use my own power."_

_"You're just like Derek," Scott spat out. "That's all you care about, power, you don't care about anything else, you just want to pretend you're something special, even if you have to use other people and take things that don't belong to you."_

_Stiles set his jaw. "You know that's not me, and you_ should _know that's not Derek."_

_"I'm going to stop you," Scott said. "You can't just do whatever you want, just because you want to."_

_With a bitter laugh, Stiles swiped at his eyes and said, "That's really rich, coming from you."_

_"You know I'm right." Scott crossed his arms, staring Stiles down. "You know I'm going to win."_

_"Why, because you're a true alpha? Or because I'm nothing, since I don't have a girlfriend and I'm not good at lacrosse and I'm not popular?" Stiles shook his head. "Fuck you, man. Just... fuck you."_

*** 

Derek felt dizzy and weak as he sat up, trying to work out who and when and where he was. It looked like he was somewhere modern, because there was a phone on the table and the same furniture that every cheap hotel ordered from a catalog. His body felt normal, not too young or too old, he was male... He was himself, a fact verified by moving to the mirror to look at himself and then double-checked by digging his driver's license out of his wallet. 

He had to find Stiles. 

Memory seeped back, not in the frustrating, hard-fought way he had tried to remember himself when bouncing through past selves, but in the way of waking up from a long nap and adjusting to living in the world again. He was in New York, because he'd intended to finally confront the things he'd had placed in storage after Laura had died and he'd had to walk straight back out of her apartment when the lingering scent of family had almost driven him to have a breakdown before he'd even gotten the door all the way open. He'd been on his way to check out when a dizzy spell had come over him and he'd found himself viewing the world of ancient Rome.

Grabbing his bag, he went straight to the lobby to demand a cab and the number of a travel agent who could get him on a plane to California by the time he reached the airport. It got done, although he had to charter a plane and pay for it up front, and once in the air he scrolled through his contacts until he found the number for one of Laura's old boyfriends, a history professor at NYU who would find what he needed faster than Derek could. 

Stiles wasn't answering his phone, making the hours spent on the plane were the longest of Derek's life, even if favorable tailwinds and the Gulfstream G6 shaved off as much time as physically possible. He had a car rented and waiting for him at the airport exit, tires squealing as he used every advantage that werewolf reflexes gave him and every ounce of speed the car was capable of to try to outrun the thrumming in his head that told him it was useless and he would be too late again, too late, too late, too late. 

Beacon Hills was quiet as he roared through town, blasting through lights that turned green just as he was entering the intersection, tearing past dark houses and shuttered businesses and a complete lack of any visible signs of humanity. It might have been spooky if he'd been able to spare any of his attention for it; as it was, he was just grateful he didn't have to slow down. 

He staggered as he exited the car outside the sheriff's house, legs stiff from being cooped up for so long, but he pushed through and swung himself up the side of the house and into the open window. He could smell blood and Scott and a howl escaped him, full of grief and anger and the determination to find Stiles and rescue or avenge him. 

"What the hell?" The sheriff had his gun drawn, but pointed at the floor instead of at Derek as he stood in the doorway. 

"Stiles is in danger," Derek said. "Something, someone took him, he's in trouble."

Frowning, the sheriff said, "Scott called earlier, said they'd be hanging out tonight at his place."

"There's blood," Derek said, barely holding on against the urge to shift and run to Scott's house. They probably weren't there; it's not as if either of the boys was in the habit of telling the truth. 

"He probably cut himself--" The sheriff's grip tightened on the gun, and Derek couldn't tell if he actually believed what he was saying. "He's got to be okay. Scott's with him." 

Opening and closing his hands to relieve the pain of forcing his claws to retract, Derek said, "Your first date with your wife, you got called to the hospital and she sat talking with an old man who left her his books."

"How the hell do you know that?" The sheriff lowered the gun the rest of the way and stared at Derek.

"The same way I know Stiles is running out of time." Derek pushed past him to go back down the stairs, hoping to pick up a scent trail once he was outside. The sheriff disappeared for a moment only to show up as Derek was getting into his car.

The sheriff's uniform pants were rumpled and the belt unbuckled, the waistband of his pajamas visible and an old t-shirt on under his uniform jacket, but Derek had never seen him look more formidable. "Get in the cruiser." 

The sheriff hit the lights before they'd even gotten out of the driveway, and drove at a speed rivaling what Derek had managed in the rented sports car even while dictating orders to his deputies about finding any of the vehicles belonging to Stiles, Scott, or Mrs. McCall. The latter's car was spotted outside the animal clinic, and the sheriff made a u-turn so sharp that Derek could smell rubber burning and sticking to the asphalt.

The lights were on in the back, and Derek growled as he was stopped short by the mountain ash barrier, unable to even touch the door. The sheriff pushed him to one side and banged on the door, shouting for Scott to open up before trying the door. Derek could hear faint noises from inside, but the sound was muffled enough that he couldn't make out what they were saying. "They're in there." 

"Stand back!" Stilinski stepped back, aimed at the lock and fired, blasting off both the deadbolt and a chunk of the door itself. It was enough to break the mountain ash seal, and Derek pushed past the sheriff to where he could now hear Deaton barking out, "Hold him still!" 

He could hear Scott saying something back, but he couldn't hear Stiles. He was already roaring out a challenge by the time he burst into the exam room to see Scott holding Stiles underwater in the same damn ice-filled bath that they'd used on Isaac, who'd taken a full day to stop coughing and shivering, even with the werewolf healing. Enraged, Derek tackled Scott and bashed his head against the floor, wanting to knock him out quickly so he could get Stiles out of the tub and make sure he was still alive. 

Scott fought back, biting and twisting and clawing, and Derek barely managed to move quickly enough to keep his jugular intact. Scott's eyes were a bright, frenzied red, and it was all Derek could do to stay alive and try not to kill him. 

Behind him, Deaton was holding down Stiles as his struggles grew weaker, saying something about how Stiles had asked for this, that they were saving his life, that being possessed once had left him vulnerable. The sheriff hesitated and Derek threw himself sideways, letting Scott's claws rip open his side so that he could knock over the ice bath, sending Stiles skidding along the wet floor to cough weakly. 

The sight of his son stiffened the sheriff's resolve and his grip on his gun tightened as he pointed it at Deaton. "You're under arrest for kidnapping and attempted murder. Make a move towards my son and I'll shoot you dead." 

"Scott?" Deaton was still insufferably calm as he stood with his hands at his sides, looking at the sheriff with contempt. "Please restrain Sheriff Stilinski. There may still be time to save Stiles, but only if I hurry." 

Derek let him go, desperate to reach Stiles and help him; the sheriff would prefer it that way even if Derek had been capable of doing anything else. He tried to scoop him up but slipped on a mixture of his own blood and the ice, managing only to bring Stiles to a seated position. It was enough to push water out of his stomach and lungs and he was coughing, dragging in great gulps of air, and Derek felt his heart stutter with relief. 

He couldn't enjoy it, as he was flying backwards through the air a moment later, slamming to a halt against the exam table. There was a trickle of blood on the side of his face from where the skin had split open, but he couldn't raise a hand to wipe it away; there was an overwhelming pressure against him that kept him trapped, like being crushed under a sheet of glass. He yelled for Stiles, only to have the pressure increased by a negligent twist of Deaton's fingers. 

"Let me go, dammit, don't you see what he's doing?" The sheriff struggled against Scott's hold, his wrists already showing signs of bruising and gun on the floor a few feet away. 

Scott didn't even sound uncomfortable when he said, "Deaton's just trying to help. Stiles went power-hungry, and he wouldn't listen when I tried to get him to stop. We have to do what's right." 

Even while struggling to breathe, Derek couldn't help rolling his eyes. The sheriff seemed to agree. "He almost killed my _son_ , and Derek's turning blue." 

"Derek's a bad guy," Scott said with a small shrug. "He's helping whatever it is that took Stiles over." 

The sheriff looked at him for a moment, his jaw slack, then bent forward and slammed back so his skull crashed into Scott's nose. The shock of it loosened Scott's grip and the sheriff twisted to jam a knee into Scott's groin before doubling his fists together and slamming them into the back of Scott's head. It wasn't enough to knock him out, but it made him stumble and clutch himself, and gave the sheriff time to grab the gun again. Deaton waved a hand and slammed him against a wall, but splitting his attention gave Derek room to breathe. 

"Stiles," he croaked out, straining to push against the pressure. " _Dominus!_ " 

Stiles managed to lift his head, wiping at the mess on his face from throwing up water and blood, and his eyes met Derek's. They were the same gold they'd always been, and Derek's voice was a hoarse whisper as he whispered, "Accipe quod abcondisti, amor." 

The words hit Stiles like a physical blow, and there was no sound as his lips formed the syllables of the Roman slave's name. Deaton showed a reaction at last, his face twisting into a scowl as he let the sheriff fall to the floor and pushed both hands towards Derek, grinding him back against the wall until his bones creaked. 

"No," Stiles said, his voice as hoarse as the gunslinger's, and the pressure was abruptly gone. Derek stumbled forward, gulping for air and trying to stand protectively in front of Stiles. He almost collapsed at the gentle hand on his shoulder. "Sit down. I've got this." 

"Stiles?" Scott crawled forward, forcing himself to his feet between him and Deaton. "You've got to fight this! Come on, you're my best friend, I don't want to hurt you!" 

Stiles lifted a hand, palm out, then brought it down to his leg in the gesture for a dog to lie down. Scott went down, slowly but inexorably. "You're not going to." 

"Give up, Mr. Stilinski. It will be easier that way." Deaton moved his hands, sending a powder floating through the air, and Stiles reeled back. 

"Fuck you." Stiles huffed out a breath and the powder swirled in mid-air, turning to fly towards Deaton's face. He waved a hand to disperse it, but some clung to his skin and glittered. "You always did love your powders. Crutches damage you if you use them too long." 

Deaton's eyes shifted a fraction; Derek thought that might be as close to shocked as he was capable of looking. "You're not him; you just stole his power." 

"Look at his eyes," Derek said, feeling his strength flooding back as Stiles laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Everything else changes, but his eyes are always the same." 

"What?" Stiles looked between Derek and Deaton, who looked frozen in place. "I'm going to need some details later, but for now let's go with the assumption that people accuse others of what they're guilty of and give back everything Alan Deaton ever stole." 

He clapped his hands together, and Derek felt a searing pain and roared, even as Scott howled. The alpha power flooded his system, clearing out the last remnants of pain and weakness. The realization that this had been taken from him, rather than having been freely given, was enough to make him snarl and lunge for Deaton, who held a hand up to create another barrier. Derek could barely speak around his fangs and the anger coursing through him. "Why?" It encompassed everything: Why didn't you save my family? Why did you take away everything I had left? Why did you try to take Stiles? 

"Beacon Hills is my home, and it needs to be protected," Deaton said calmly. "Talia failed. Laura deserted, Peter was a mad dog, and you-- you're just useless." 

"See, I could sort of go with you a bit, but then you got to that last part and pissed me off." Stiles lifted a hand and Deaton flinched. "You brainwashed Scott to think I shouldn't have any power? How about you try it." 

Deaton sagged, stumbling forward and suddenly looking years older. Stiles almost buckled, but Derek caught him and held him upright, wrapping his arms around him so that Derek's front was entirely pressed against his back. "Scott? You can get up now." 

Scott stood, shame-faced and pugnacious. "What did you do to me?" 

"Less than what either of you did to him," the sheriff said. "Now I'm not even going to pretend I know what happened here, but I'm surprised my deputies aren't already here and I'm going to have an arrest for them to process, so you're all going to have to give statements. That _don't_ involve the words 'magic' or 'werewolves' or whatever the hell else went on here tonight." 

"I'm not going to let you put Deaton in jail," Scott said. "I won't go along with whatever story you make up, I'll tell them he was just trying to help me get Stiles under control after a violent episode and you overreacted." 

The sheriff's face turned scarlet with rage and he lifted a finger to point at Scott's face, but Deaton just said tiredly, "I'll confess. Just leave Scott out of it; he doesn't need an accessory charge on his record." 

Scott looked at him in confusion and Deaton smiled. "I still believe in your potential, Mr. McCall. It was always there, I just... hurried it along. I have faith that you'll be able to make things happen as they should." 

He walked out ahead of the sheriff, allowing himself to be assisted into the police cruiser just as the first of the deputies arrived; Derek wondered if they had taken a really long time to get there or if the events inside the clinic had happened a lot faster than they had seemed to. He decided it really didn't matter, as Stiles was still wrapped in his arms. 

*** 

__"Past lives," the sheriff said flatly._ _

__"Yeah, crazy, right?" Stiles shrugged. "I cast a spell that was supposed to let me find the source of my power, but since the me from ancient Rome had split his power and put a big chunk of it in Derek, it sent him back instead."_ _

__The sheriff pinched the bridge of his nose. "Crazy is a good word."_ _

__"So, like, the spell sent Derek to find out where my power was and how to get to it, but he's kind of dense and so he went, like,_ everywhere. _And everywhen, just about. He didn't even know consciously what the deal was, but Scott knocking me out interrupted the power just enough for the spell to kick him back to his body."__

__"And get tickets from every red light camera between here and the airfield in San Agosto," the sheriff said drily._ _

__Flailing, Stiles said, "You can make those go away, right? Anyway, they were green by the time he went through them!"_ _

__"If he chooses to defend himself in court, I'll support his argument that he was in a hurry to save your life," his dad said. "But I'd rather not have made it through an investigation for firing my weapon only to start one for influence peddling."_ _

__Stiles looked mutinous, but didn't argue. After a moment of awkward silence, his dad said, "So, you guys are... soulmates?"_ _

__"We're dating," Stiles said firmly. "Some of our past selves may have been in love, but not all of them were."_ _

__With a knowing look, his dad said, "How many of the ones that weren't involved you two knowing each other for more than a few minutes?"_ _

__"None of them, but that's not the point," Stiles said. "The point is, all those people that were us, they're not us. The soul is the same, but the choices and who they made us into, those are different. So, yeah, we'll probably end up together and he'll have my adopted babies - hey, I wonder if I could, like, magically grow him a womb? He's a werewolf, his body's already used to transforming, and--"_ _

__"Adoption is a beautiful and loving option," the sheriff said firmly. "Please explore it before you hatch any plots for a magical pregnancy, especially without talking it over with your partner."_ _

__Nodding rapidly, Stiles said, "Yeah, totally. Especially since I am_ way _too young to be a dad. College first."__

__"Good," his dad said, patting his knee. "Since that's settled, I'm going to go ahead and take a nap before my shift. Don't forget you've got a meeting with the DA tomorrow about Alan's plea bargain."_ _

__"I won't," Stiles said, holding up his phone. "I've got an alarm set and everything."_ _

__The phone chirped as Stiles wiggled it, displaying a message from Derek that read, "For the last time, I don't remember your sex faces, and I'm not going to see the ones from this life until we've dated for at least three months. Six if you ask me again."_ _

__Stiles went pale as he turned the phone around to read the message, and the sheriff laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I like him. Tell him to come watch the game with me on Monday."_ _

__The only answer was a muffled groan as Stiles put his head down on his desk and flung his arms over his head._ _


End file.
